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In Tune With the SONG Fund: Investing in health in India
Who’s on top of the lightening-pace Indian impact investment space? One major player is the $17 million USD SONG Investment Company. Funded and owned by Google, the Omidyar Network, and the Soros Economic Development Fund, SONG was launched in 2009 to demonstrate that investing in SMEs can not only elicit shareholders returns, but also improve economic opportunities and jobs for the masses in India.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- impact investing
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Roundup – 3/3/12: Profiting Off the Poor, the Ends vs. the Means
So this week’s batch of articles primarily has focused on the growth of mobile money, be it in banking or in the form of an e-wallet. It also settled a key debate around profiting off the poor, at least between Vikram Akula, then the founder and CEO of SKS Microfinance, and Grameen Bank Founder Muhammad Yunus.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- microfinance
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The Big Idea: Taking Mobile Money Forward
The excitement of mobile money has been dampened by an inability of deployments to take hold outside a handful of successful markets. Driving the enthusiasm forward is the opportunity to bridge the gap between one billion people in emerging markets who have mobile phones but no bank account. On Tuesday, McKinsey & Company released a report “Mobile money: Getting to scale in emerging markets” seeking to cut through this excitement and identify critical success factors for implementation.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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Touring the New NextBillion: New Jobs, Events Calendar
With the redesigned NB, we think we’ve made it easier to find, share and submit jobs; while keeping up with important dates on your social enterprise calendar. So let me take this opportunity to quickly walk you through these new features.
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- Uncategorized
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Learning From the Past, Looking Ahead: Highlights From Day 2 of the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference
“We really are at a crossroads,” The Economist’s Matt Bishop observed at the opening of the second day of Harvard’s Social Enterprise Conference. Bishop struck a theme for the day’s speakers: We’ve reached a point in time to rethink how markets work, and how more people can share in the benefits of the global economy.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Young Entrepreneurs at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference: Defending the American Dream, Changing the World
This weekend’s Harvard Social Enterprise Conference kicked off on a youthful note with the Young Entrepreneur’s Keynote, which included Kavita Shuka of Fenugreen, Lauren Bush Lauren of Feed Projects, and Taylor Conroy of TenInThree.com.
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- Uncategorized
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The Big Idea: Domestic Remittances in Africa – Demand is There, Will the Teleco’s Step Up?
Our team added a module of over 30 questions on payments to the Gallup World Poll in 8 countries (1,000 respondents each were queried in Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, D.R. Congo, Zambia, and Kenya). Questions in the module assessed respondents’ payment behaviors through services such as money transfers, international remittances, government and wage payments, and utilities and other bills.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- research
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The Power of Exposure: The Influence of Role Models and Design on Aspirations
As a mayor of Medellín, Colombia, Sergio Fajardo wanted to provide young Colombians alternatives to crime and violence, and to change the mindset that they can’t aspire to anything better. He did it by creating aesthetically inspiring public buildings and spaces in poor neighborhoods.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- product design
